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Young people’s distancing themselves from or abandoning the Church may, paradoxically, be good news, a Gospel message addressed to us. The young no longer seek authoritarian fathers. Neither the authority of the father nor the tradition of the Church is perceived as a legacy worth inheriting. In fact, young people do not believe in a solid adult identity founded on the transcendent values of the Christian faith. The credible adult they are looking for, the credible Church whose word they might listen to, is that of an adult who acknowledges his or her own frailty. Young people are seeking a Church that acknowledges its vulnerability but does not deny its affection for them. A Church that has a centre: its interest in them. Listening to their distance from the Church can tell us that regenerated is possible if we accept that we are a vulnerable Church, one that tells the story of its own suffering as passionate, creative, courageous struggles that they may be open to and not suspicious of.